Monday, November 4, 2013

I wrote this sermon and sent it to 46 pastors in my area. Amazing that an atheist can write such a religious sermon! At times, the twisted logic I had to use and the pointing to Bible quotes for my "moral guide" were difficult, but I thought this would be the best way to reach a large audience and get them thinking about animals' rights.
I decided writing anonymously was a good idea. My hope is that people in churches will start to think and care about animals' situations, they will be less "self-important" and it will help loosen the bonds of their religion. They may realize their connections to the universe. My hope is that it is like a house of cards, where one free thought leads to another one!
The music, Bless the Beasts and the Children is a little hokey, and I wrote to the pastors and told them they could change this sermon however they pleased, but hoped they would address the animals' situations in some manner. We will see if they do!
I do have this sermon on another blogger page, under another name, just as a sermon, free for any pastor who needs something new to say on Sunday.

SERVING ANIMALS

Prelude Music

BLESS THE BEASTS AND THE
CHILDREN

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNXocCzNq8Y

PRELUDE WORDS

“Never, never be afraid to do
what’s right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at
stake.Society’s punishments are small
compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.”This was said by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Our sermon today will not be
an uplifting sermon to help you get through the week.For as much as we need help in these troubled
times, there are those who are in worse shape than we are, and they are called
animals.

Today we will break down the
walls of comfort we build around ourselves and examine our feelings toward
animals.This whole subject of rights
for animals is not an official church stance; this is simply an issue for each
of us to examine.

SERMON

The sermon for today will be
“Serving Animals.” And by serving animals I do not mean on a plate.Today we will see what we can do to help the
situation that animals find themselves in, and how we can be of service to help
improve their conditions.As you sit uncomfortably
in your seats for a short time here at church and feel you do not want to know
what is happening to animals, realize that on most factory farms the animals
are sitting, standing and lying through much worse.As Christians, we should not want to enslave
innocent creatures, yet we are part of the blame for the enslavement, because
we do nothing to help the situation. As
citizens in this fine town, we are trying to earn the title of “City of Compassion,” but how can we become a City of Compassion if the people
of the City ignore what is happening to animals every day?

The sixth Commandment says, “Thou
Shalt Not Kill.”It did not say the rule
applied only to humans. Yet we make an
assumption that it is fine to kill any being except humans.When we go to the grocery store we see a
large variety of delicious meats; our brains block out that the display
contains parts of animals whose last thoughts were fear and horror at a
slaughterhouse.But those delicious meat
pieces were animals who were just toddlers and teenagers when they were
killed.Broiler chickens are babies: just 5 weeks old when they are killed, veal calves
are 4 months old and beef cattle are 13 months old.We always talk about protecting babies, but
these are young ones that we have not protected.

How do we feel about imprisonment
of the innocent?Most farm animals are
imprisoned, whether they are in a cage, tied to a stall, or crowded in a barn
with thousands of other animals. How do
we feel about slavery? Dairy cows are
our modern day slaves, as they work to produce for us three times a day, every
day, with no holidays.In Exodus 20:8-10 it says “Animals
are to abstain from work on the Sabbath as well as the humans.”But today’s dairy cows do not work regular
hours. They are continuously kept pregnant so they will produce milk, and are bred
to produce up to 20 times the milk they are meant to give. The dairy cows’
muscles waste away because all of their energy goes into producing milk. And
their babies do not get one drop of mother’s milk because the baby calves are
taken away, usually at one day of age and are raised on formula.Do we, as Christians, support
imprisonment and slavery of the innocent?Do we support babies being taken from their mothers?

When we hear of the daily treatment of animals in America, why are we not horrified?We have become numb to the suffering of any
creatures but humans.

HOW WOULD
YOU LIKE IT? [written by Jenny
Moxham]

How would you like it if right from the
start,Right from the day of your
birth,You were never allowed to
have even one glimpseOf this beautiful glorious
Earth.

Not ever a glimpse of the sun or the skyThe grassy green meadows or
trees,Deprived of all knowledge of
beauty and colorOf raindrops and sweet summer
breeze.

Well this is the wanton and cruel
deprivationImposed upon millions of
hens,Imposed upon chickens in
windowless warehousesPigs and their piglets in
pens.

Not permitted to know even if there's a
worldRegardless of what shape or
form,Outside of the cobwebby,
gloomy grey prison,The hell into which they've
been born.

But there does come a day when some do get
a chanceTo get a wee glimpse of the
sky,The dazzle of sunshine or
grassy green fieldAs their transport goes
hurtling by.

The sad irony is that this day of their
life,This day when their hearts
should be filled,Is the day that they're
crammed into lorries and crates,And are driven away to be
killed.

Let us continue with looking
at our own conversations, our own thoughts. Have we ever said, “Animals are here for our
use.” Although people can reference the
Bible for similar phrases, I am sure God did not want us to use animals by imprisoning
them.As an example, when we purchase
eggs from the grocery store, 95% of the eggs come from chickens who are jammed
into small cages, 8 to a cage, so tight they can never spread their wings.Their cages are stacked one on top of
another, so the droppings from the chickens in the top cages fall on the other
chickens below them. This is just not a Godly image!If you look at Genesis 1:29, God made a
paradise for all His creatures and it says that nuts, seeds and plants were
eaten in Paradise.Do we want to live closer to being in “Paradise” or do we want to live as if we are in “The Fallen
World?”

There is another Bible verse
we must discuss.Have we ever said to
another person, “The Bible says we have dominion over animals.”This one word, dominion, has been misused for
man’s greed and power.Dominion means
being the caregiver and ruler, but that does not mean being abusive. We have
dominion over our children; but none of us would ever force feed our children,
operate on them without anesthesia, or send them to stand in the slaughter
line. If we would not do this to a
human, why would we do it to an animal?They have feelings and emotions, and they do suffer and feel pain.Yet we deny their pain and suffering in order
to continue our gluttonous lifestyles.Is our desire for a moment’s pleasure worth more than that animal’s
entire life?

Why do we specifically use Bible
passages to justify abuse toward animals?One phrase that is used often is: “Man is specially made in God’s image.”
Certainly, we can feel special that we
are made in God’s image - but are we supposed to use this passage to separate
ourselves from other creatures on this earth?We humans should be looking for our connections, our shared elements
with the earth and the stars, and not be ashamed that we have some DNA
sequences the same as animals.We are all
created with some of the very same elements as animals, the earth and the
stars. After all, Adam was created from
the dirt of the earth.We should embrace
how specially made we all are!

But instead of simply feeling
grateful, we humans use this passage “Being specially made in God’s image” to
make ourselves feel more important than animals.Haven’t some of us said, “I would rather help
starving children than animals; I think helping humans is more important.”Look into your heart, and then ask yourself
this:Why is this an either/or
statement?Why only help humans when you
can help both humans and animals?

In Proverbs 12:10 it says: “A
righteous man regardeth his beast.”Are
we righteous regarding animals?It is
harder to tell now, as times have changed and we do not see a beast in our own
fields.Those beasts are hidden away and
laws are enacted to prevent us from knowing what is going on inside those walls
of windowless barns.Are we righteous by
ignoring what is being intentionally hidden from us?

SONG - MAD WORLD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHPpKcdanaM

There are many ways to help
animals, but let us look first at our eating habits.If we look in the Bible for whether or not we
are to eat meat, we can find support for eating meat and we can find support
for not eating meat. What do we do when we can find evidence for eating meat
but also evidence for being vegetarian from the words of the Bible?We must look into our hearts and converse
with our God personally.Each of you
must search your soul to figure out what will please God.

In the church, the word
sacrifice is always used.We Christians
speak of sacrificing all the time, yet how many of us would give up eating a
hamburger in order to save a cow’s life that we cannot see?Most people will not even make a small
substitute like drinking a glass of almond milk instead of cow’s milk for just
one lunch!We do not want to throw
around words like sacrificing for God, when we are not making any effort to
give up a food in order to save an animal’s life.

But what is the harm of
drinking cows’ milk or eating an egg?Most
of us probably do not know.If we drink
cow’s milk, whether it is regular milk, humanely farmed milk or organic milk, it
means that a dairy cow worked for you and that she gave birth, probably several
times.If she had a boy, he either
became a veal calf or he was shipped off to slaughter as a baby, to become soft
leather.So drinking milk affects the
female cow’s own body and her children’s lives. If we eat eggs, it means we are contributing
to a farming operation in which all male chicks are killed at one day of age; after
all, what use are males to the egg laying industry?Male chicks are ground up or crushed, every
day. So you can see that one glass of milk or one egg has a huge effect on a
cow or a chicken. Whether humane
farming, organic farming or factory farming, the animals suffer, and nearly all
animals from factory farms, organic farms and humane farms, go to the same kind
of slaughterhouse. It is time to help;
it is time to change.

SONG:TIS A GIFT TO BE SIMPLE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWTDgc96bg8

People who want to continue
eating meat and dairy claim it is their personal choice and they have a right
to eat what they want.It is your
personal choice because there are very few laws to protect farm animals.So you do have the personal choice to eat
what you want.But this personal choice has
victims.

Let us PRAY.Dear Lord, let us find the mercy in our
hearts to help those who need it, to recognize that need, when they cannot tell
us they need help.Let the people of our
church be an example of your good grace and your mercy, as you gave your life
so that we may know how important it is to sacrifice for those we do not
know.

OFFERTORY.Let us give generously today, and we will
donate a portion of our gatherings to an animal sanctuary in Gridley,
Illinois, just above Bloomington.The animals there are all rescued animals; these animals needed the help
of humans in order to escape what other humans had done to them.Wedrose Acres has a camel, cow, pigs, llamas,
sheep, goats, horses, a turkey, ducks and more!

With a growing population in
the world, there will be more hungry people, more need for food, but more
factory farms do not sound like the path of righteousness.There will be more factory farms – it will
get worse before it gets better.Sometimes,
we follow a path we know is not the right direction.And as Christians we know how important it is
to follow the right path.The right path
might be a difficult path, but just because helping animals is not easy, should
we give up before we start?

Helping animals can be one of
your missions.You see, you do not need
to travel to another country to perform a mission.You can help animals right here.We must start by instructing our younger
generation.We must teach them to be
kind to animals.Have we taken our
children outside and taught them to quietly look at birds, enjoy animals from a
distance, and to drive slowly so as not to hit a squirrel by mistake?These are lessons that seem to be
forgotten.Do we put out water for animals?Most of us fear any animals coming into our
yards, and we have stopped putting out scraps of food or water.We have insulated ourselves and isolated
ourselves, and only see cute animal pictures on Facebook.

And we can look to our diets
to see what we can do.If we read Daniel
1:3-16 in the Bible, “Daniel and his friends refuse to eat from the king’s
table which has meat on it, but eat vegetables instead.After ten days they are found to be healthier
than those who eat at the king’s table.”Daniel was ahead of his time.We
now know from research that arteries can clean back out and heal themselves
when we stop eating cholesterol and saturated fat. We can reverse heart disease
and Type II diabetes with a very low fat, plant and starch based diet.So, we can heal ourselves of many illnesses while
healing injustice in the world.

CLOSING

Animals on factory farms have
no choice and no voice. We must be their voice.The strongest compassion can be for those innocent beings we do not see
because they are hidden away.The
greatest compassion is when we do not personally get rewarded for our deeds.

There will be some helpers
passing out papers in the back which tell of specific ways to help
animals.As you take the papers on your
way out, realize that you are holding the key to a life of increased
compassion.

BENEDICTION

May we bow our heads in
prayer:

Oh Heavenly Father,

We thank you today for giving
us a new message and a new challenge.You have brought us this awareness of injustice toward animals, and we
recognize we must improve our compassion and turn it into action.Give us the strength to help those who are
unseen but suffering.In your name, we
pray.Amen

ATTACHMENT

SOME WAYS TO HELP ANIMALS

1.Investigate the vegan diet; try some
recipes.Share some recipes on social
networking sites.You do not have to be
a vegan to help!If we all cut down, we
can shut down the factory farms.

a.Try adding
starch to fill up instead of meat. (Potatoes, rice, corn, and pasta are not
high in calories, and they are low in fat.It’s what is put on them that can cause problems!)

b.Try any
nondairy milk – soy, almond, coconut.

2.Check into what laws need to be changed.Write representatives about State and Federal
laws.

3.Request that crops be grown for human
consumption.Illinois lands should be filled with crops
to feed people!It would be more
efficient.

4.Look into the idea of hemp as a crop in our
state. Hemp is grown to make rope, clothing, soap, foods, oil, wax, resin,
pulp, paper, mulch and fuel.It is not
marijuana.If it seems like a good idea
to you, let your representatives know.

5.Fight against Ag Gag laws (laws that make it
illegal to film in barns).We deserve to
know all about our food and what is happening to the animals.

7.Speak about making rights for animals a true
Social Justice Movement.

8.Help.Volunteer at an animal sanctuary or shelter.Donate supplies like paper towels, note cards
and pens.

9.Pass out leaflets about animal injustice
(available at www.Veganoutreach.com).Take a look at these leaflets!

10.
Go to sites like Mercy for Animals, Meat.org, and Humanemyth.org and watch some
videos.Make yourself watch them if you
currently eat any form of meat, to educate yourself.The video on Meat.org called “If
Slaughterhouses Had Glass Walls” currently on the Home Page with Paul McCartney
as announcer, goes through what each animal endures: cows, pigs, goats,
turkeys, chickens and fish. If you find these videos are too horrific to watch,
it is a sign that you should not be eating meat.

11.
Contact a local Vegetarian Society, and they should be happy to answer any questions
you have and you can attend their meetings to learn more.They will help you find sources to make your
journey easier.

www.drmcdougall.com.This doctor writes books and lectures on
starch based diets.Fascinating
reading!Click on “Education” and then
click “Health and Science,” then click on “Hot Topics” and scroll down – choose
a subject and click and read the articles!There are tons of articles there!Also, read under “Star Mcdougallers” for personal success stories.

Video
“The Last Heart Attack” with Dr. Sanjay Gupta.Sanjayguptamd.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/29/sanjay.gupta.-reports-the-last-heart-attack/
(Also probably on YouTube.)It is a
video about heart health and how plant based diets help and re-open arteries.

www.findingvegan.com.They find popular vegan recipes on the
Internet and post them so you see 12 different pictures at once.

Any Local Vegetarian Society
– A local group of vegetarians, vegans and those who want to explore
vegetarianism who meet once a month.Many
also have a Facebook page and welcome questions and guests.

www.cok.net
(Compassion over Killing)This is
another activist site with a great variety of ways to get involved and learn.

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About Me

I became an atheist thanks to YouTube! For years I hovered between having a God, being "spiritual" and being agnostic - in fact, most of my life. There was only a short period of time when I was a Jesus Freak along with my brother, but I did not fit in with his group. I attended a religious college for two years and felt like the "odd woman out" there as well. One day on the main page of AOL there was a picture of Kirk Cameron and another picture of a pretty young blond woman with curly long hair and a cute little chin. They said she got more "hits" on YouTube than Kirk did! Of course, it was Zomgitscriss! I watched her video and thought, "You know, I think like she does, but she is a lot smarter than I am!" I watched more of her videos, and she said it was just a hop, skip and jump from agnosticism to atheism. I thought, "Oh, I could never be an atheist - it's such a harsh word!" I decided to look at her favorites and saw a big guy with long hair who looked like he belonged in a motorcycle gang. I smirked and thought, "This will be good - let's see what he has to say," thinking he had to sound dumb. It turned out to be Aron Ra, and I was treated to video after video about evolution, taxonomy and phylogeny - subjects I knew nothing about! What an education! One day, I clicked on Pangeaprogress' videos. I saw his beautiful nature videos of Africa. Suddenly, a pack of lions surrounded an antelope and started eating her, slowly, starting at the hips and wherever they could bite. I was totally shocked. I had been overprotected a good share of my life, and my mother always told me that animals "always went right for the neck and the death was over in an instant." Well, it wasn't. From that moment on, I was an atheist. No God could sit by and watch such cruelty and pain and suffering and allow it to happen. No excuses. This is how YouTube converted me, and my eyes have been opened to so many new ideas thanks to the Internet!